The Bertie Project

by Alexander McCall Smith

  She smiled. “Oh, can’t I?”

  “No, you can’t,” he retorted, but his voice lacked conviction.

  “What about Bertie?” she said. “What about Ulysses?”

  He closed his eyes. He could not look at her. And within him, a cold hand clutched at his heart.

  “You see,” said Irene, “if you choose to go off with some floozy, Stuart, then you will have to bear the consequences. And the consequence of leaving your family will be that your family will leave you.”

  “You can’t…”

  “Oh, I can, Stuart, the law will prefer me when it comes to custody. I’m the one who’s stayed at home to bring them up. You’ll never get custody of the children. And I’ll go and live in Aberdeen, Stuart. I’m warning you, Stuart, I shall. And Bertie will come too. You’ll see him once a month, if that.”

  “Aberdeen?” said Stuart, his voice becoming a bit stronger. “Why Aberdeen, might I ask? Is it by any chance to do with a certain Professor Hugo Fairbairn, Irene?” He paused, and then he said what he had wanted to say for so long but had been inhibited from doing so by fear.

  “Leave him out of this, Stuart,” warned Irene.

  “But why? Don’t you think he’s relevant? Don’t you think it’s relevant that you had an affair with that man and that according to Bertie, at least, there’s a striking resemblance between Ulysses and the good professor.”

  “How dare you!” shouted Irene. “You’re the one. You’re the one who’s gone off with some ghastly little slut you met in a bar or wherever. You’re the one, Stuart. Hugo and I were friends, nothing more…” She began to choke.

  “Your lies are making you choke,” said Stuart.

  She recovered, and moved closer to him. “It’s over, Stuart. Look at me. Look me in the eye. It’s over. The choice is not between me and that other woman, but between her and your son, your Bertie. You choose, Stuart. You go right ahead and choose.”

  He looked into her eyes, and felt his courage melt away. No, there really was no choice—not when it was put in those terms.

  Irene suddenly smiled. “That was Freedom Come All Ye you were humming when you came in, wasn’t it? Well, you’re free, Stuart—free to choose. Go ahead and make your choice.”

  Walking Home

  Bertie was meant to be picked up by Nicola and returned by her to Scotland Street by seven that evening. Stuart changed this plan, though, telephoning his mother to let her know that he would fetch Bertie instead. “You can put your feet up,” he said.

  “I’m perfectly happy to go,” she said. “And besides, weren’t you working late at the office today? I thought you had some big project on.”

  He blushed—a telephone blush, unwitnessed, but as warm and as guilty as any blush may be. To mislead one’s wife was bad enough, but to compound the offence by misleading one’s mother took deception to a new level. And that appalled him, because Stuart, for all his weakness, had an underlying good will. He was unselfish; he was concerned about the feelings of others; and he recognised that the borderline between good and bad was a subtle one, sometimes not immediately visible, easily transgressed.

  Within minutes of his showdown with Irene, when she had retreated to the kitchen like a triumphant general allowing a defeated counterpart time to go over the terms of the unconditional surrender—no terms, of course—Stuart had realised that his duty to his sons—to Bertie in particular—outweighed any other consideration. He had found love and affection in his brief affair with Katie, but these were small things beside the obligation he owed to Bertie. He knew what Bertie thought of him; he knew that to a young boy a father was the sun, the central point of the universe, the source of all things. He just was. That was how a boy should feel about his father. That was what being Dad was all about.

  To have that was an immense privilege. To have somebody, some little centre of consciousness looking to you for all these things, was a responsibility as large as any responsibility could be. To be at the heart of a young life, to be able to help it into the light, to introduce it to the world, was something before which you should do nothing but stand in complete awe. And now he did.

  “Stuart,” said his mother, “are you all right? You sound…”

  Mothers could tell; even over the phone, mothers could tell.

  He began to assure her that he was fine, but even as he spoke it dawned on him that this was another lie, and so he said, “I’m not really all right. No, I’m not. But I’m going to be.”

  “Oh, my darling, what’s happened? Something at work?”

  “No. I can’t really speak about it now, but I will. I’ll tell you everything later on.”

  And with that, she knew. But she knew, too, this was not the time to offer sympathy beyond a few words, which is what she did before they rang off.

  Now Stuart had another telephone call to make. This he made on the landing outside the flat, so that Irene should not hear. It was to Katie, and it was to say that the proposed meeting in the St. Vincent Bar was off.

  “Later?” she said. “How about later?”

  The telephone wire between Scotland Street and Howe Street is not a long one, but it seemed to Stuart that it crossed an ocean.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  With that, his affair was brought to a close, although they talked for a few minutes more, in a strained, emotional way. By the time the call ended, they were strangers again.

  Irene said nothing, but she made him a pot of tea and a cucumber sandwich. “I hope I’ve put enough pepper on the cucumber for your taste, Stuart,” she said. “I know how much you like pepper on cucumber.”

  He looked at her, and felt, in a way that slightly surprised him, gratitude for her consideration.

  “I’m so sorry,” he muttered.

  She said nothing for a moment. Then she said, “We all make mistakes—you in particular.”

  She left the room. “I’m going to the Melanie Klein Group,” she said. “It wasn’t cancelled—just put off for an hour. That’s why I was here when you…”

  She left the sentence unfinished.

  “I’ll go to fetch Bertie,” he said. “We can leave Ulysses with my mother. I’ll make Bertie his tea if you’re late.” The Melanie Klein Book Group frequently got bogged down in discussion of what Melanie Klein had really meant, and so Irene was often late back from it.

  Irene nodded. “Make sure Bertie eats his broccoli,” she said. And with that she left.

  He stood up. He rubbed his eyes. He felt as if he had been crying, but he had not. The tears he wanted to shed were still in him, unreleased, and he thought: they will never come out. He took the shower he had planned to take and thought, as he did so, how the nature of a shower might change from the sort of shower taken in anticipation of an assignation, to a shower one has because one is broken and one hopes the shower will wash something away. Guilt. Disappointment. The unfulfilled yearnings of our lives.

  He took the 23 bus to Church Hill and walked the short distance to the Macpherson house. Ranald Braveheart Macpherson and Bertie had reached the end of some long and complicated game, and Bertie was ready to go.

  “I think we’ll walk home,” said Stuart, taking Bertie’s hand. “We could pick up an ice cream at that place at Holy Corner—you know the one, Bertie?”

  Bertie nodded.

  “Provided, of course, you eat your broccoli later on.”

  Again Bertie nodded.

  The ice cream cone lasted from Holy Corner to the edge of the Meadows. Stuart wiped the ice cream from his son’s face, and that was the most difficult moment. That was when he almost cried.

  They continued their walk. There was something happening on the Meadows—the erection of a large tent. As they drew closer to the scene of activity, a young man came up to them with a leaflet. “Please come to our circus tomorrow,” he said.

  Stuart read the leaflet as they walked on. The Acceptable Circus, it was headed. “A strange name for a circus,
Bertie,” he said, and tucked the leaflet into his pocket.

  “I love circuses, Daddy,” said Bertie. “I’ve never been to one, but I love them.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, Bertie,” said Stuart.

  They continued their journey. At the corner of the High Street, just beyond the statue of David Hume, a young man was playing the pipes. They stopped briefly and listened to him. The piper caught Bertie’s eye, and smiled, and Bertie smiled back. A man and a woman—visitors to the city—stepped forward and put a five-pound note in the cap the piper had placed before him. The piper nodded to them and continued to play.

  They walked on. Now the Mound sloped down below them and there were flags fluttering on the National Gallery, the saltire against the sky.

  Bertie said, “I really like our flag, Daddy. Don’t you?”

  When Stuart did not reply, he looked up.

  “Are you all right, Daddy?” he asked.

  Stuart squeezed his son’s hand.

  “I’m all right, Bertie. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Sometimes I do, Daddy. Sometimes I worry.”

  “There’s no need, Bertie—no need. I’m going to be absolutely fine.”

  “Promise?”

  Stuart squeezed his hand again. “Promise.”

  Kitchen Talk in Scotland Street

  “Too many cooks,” said Domenica to her full kitchen. “Two volunteers are needed to go to the Cumberland Bar and remain there until dinner is almost ready.” She looked about her, as if uncertain as to the identity of the volunteers. Then she added, “Two volunteers and a dog, I should say.”

  The dog, of course, had to be Cyril, who was sitting under the kitchen table, dozing fitfully, enduring a dream in which he was being taunted by squirrels in Drummond Place Gardens—the stuff of canine dreams, which are never very profound, consisting largely of energetic pursuits of various lesser creatures—cats, squirrels, rabbits, all so deserving, in dog eyes, of an ignominious end. Only occasionally does a dog have a real nightmare, and that usually consists of separation, of the disappearance of his owner, which for the dog is like the death of God.

  Hearing his name mentioned, Cyril struggled back into consciousness and wagged his tail. Cumberland Bar was not in his vocabulary, which was limited to a few words: walk, biscuits, sit, Turner Prize and good dog. But he always recognised his name, even when it was surrounded by the strange soporific droning that human speech is in the ears of dogs.

  The two volunteers knew who they were. “We can take a hint, can’t we, Matthew?” said Angus Lordie.

  Matthew nodded. “If broth is to be spoiled,” he said, “then lay it not at our door. The Cumberland Bar will have to do.”

  “Good,” said Domenica. “Then Elspeth, Nicola and I shall soldier on here. The guests arrive…” She looked at her watch. “In an hour. So don’t be late.”

  As the two men and Cyril left the room, Domenica remarked, “What an interesting change in social behaviour. There was a time when men excluded women from the social space: now it’s the opposite.”

  “Oh well,” said Elspeth. “They’ll survive. And it means we can talk.”

  “I feel so sorry for men,” said Nicola. “Their conversation is so…how shall I put it? So circumscribed.”

  “I’ve never really worked out what men talk about,” said Elspeth. “At least not when they’re by themselves. Do you think they talk about women?”

  Nicola was adamant. “No, definitely not. Men do not talk about women.”

  “What then?” asked Domenica. “Work? Cars? Football? All the usual things they’re meant to talk about?”

  “Those subjects crop up,” said Elspeth. “But I suspect the big difference is their feelings. Men don’t talk about emotions—about how they feel. They just don’t.”

  Nicola looked thoughtful. “And they can suffer so,” she said. “Look at my poor son.”

  Domenica was tactful. “I wasn’t going to ask, but since you mention it…how’s Stuart bearing up?”

  Nicola sighed. “It didn’t work out in quite the way I’d hoped. I suppose I should feel ashamed of myself, but I really wanted him to leave her. He’s put up with year after year of that dreadful woman’s…”

  “Oppression?” suggested Domenica.

  “Yes, that’s not too strong a word. He’s put up with all that for his entire marriage and I thought at last he was going to show some courage and…” She broke off for a few moments. Then she continued, “Actually, my son showed something rather more significant than courage. He showed decency. And that’s a different thing altogether—it’s actually far harder.”

  Domenica was intrigued. “To be decent? Really?”

  “Yes,” said Nicola. “He’s going to make an effort, he tells me. He says that he’s going to look at things from Irene’s point of view. He’s going to try to be a better husband for her.”

  This was too much for Elspeth. “Oh really!” she exploded. “He’s the most long-suffering man I know. He’s bent over backwards.”

  “That may be so,” admitted Nicola. “But now he says he’s going to redouble his efforts. He’s going to try to give her more time to pursue her interests.”

  “Which she’s done relentlessly for years,” muttered Domenica. “But still…”

  “He’s a saint,” said Elspeth.

  “Sometimes I feel I don’t understand men,” said Nicola. “I don’t even understand my own son. But still, there we are.” She reached for the glass of wine that Domenica had poured her. “Tell me, Elspeth, what about that young man who goes out with your Australian girl? What’s his name again? The good-looking one?”

  Elspeth smiled. “Bruce. Oh well, there’s a bit of a story there, I’m afraid. Bruce didn’t quite live up to expectations, I regret to say—at least from Clare’s point of view. He’s no longer on the scene.”

  “What happened?” asked Domenica. Bruce had always exerted a certain fascination for her: he was such a narcissist, and that hair gel of his…

  “He failed to cut the mustard when it came to extreme sports,” explained Elspeth. “She’s fanatical about those things. Kite-surfing, jumping into the water from cliffs—that sort of stuff. The bar keeps getting raised—danger is a sort of drug, you know: you develop tolerance and you have to do increasingly bizarre things to get your fix, so to speak.”

  “It ends in tears, of course,” observed Nicola.

  “Everything ends in tears,” Domenica mused. “Including life itself, don’t you think? It ends in tears.”

  Elspeth shrugged. “Man that is born of woman…Isn’t that the expression? Anyway, back to Clare: she took him up to Skye to do some ridiculous thing with mountain bikes and kites—I’m not sure exactly what was involved.”

  “I sense disaster,” said Nicola.

  “As well you might: Bruce apparently took off and went far too high. He landed in a clump of gorse, which broke his fall, but wrecked the equipment. He has an arm in plaster now.”

  “But surely she was sympathetic?” said Nicola.

  “No. She felt that he’d shown her up in front of the instructor, who I gather was a very good-looking young man from Tobermory. Clare thought rather highly of him—in fact she rather ditched Bruce after she and the instructor had driven him to have his arm attended to down in Fort William. She went off with this chap. She went camping with him in Callander. I suppose they jumped off something there. There must be things to jump off around Callander. She doesn’t hang about, that girl. Bruce, as they say, is history.”

  Nicola shook her head. “Poor boy!”

  “He’ll bounce back,” said Elspeth. “He always does.”

  “But she’s still with you?” asked Domenica. “She’s still looking after the triplets?”

  “They love her,” said Elspeth. “And it gives me time to breathe.”

  “We’re very lucky,” said Domenica.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Nicola.

  “We’re very lucky to be breathing
,” said Domenica.

  See, I Am Here

  Matthew and Angus returned from the Cumberland Bar just a few minutes before the guests at Domenica’s party were due to arrive. The long kitchen table, around which they would all gather, was laid for twelve, with a branched candlestick at each end. The faux Jacobite wine glasses, engraved in the nineteen-twenties with the white rose—of which Angus was inordinately proud—were at each place, giving guests no choice: only mental reservations would negate any toast made from such glass. Beside each place was a blue spode plate, a painful reminder for at least two at that table of the dreadful affair of the blue spode teacup that had threatened the already threadbare comity between Angus and Domenica and their neighbour, Antonia. Little had been heard of Antonia since then, although she had been frequently sighted at social gatherings with her long-term house guest, Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna. The Italian nun’s striking social success had gone to both their heads, thought Domenica, but that had not diminished it. Far from it: there was scarcely a fashionable party in Edinburgh or the Lothians at which Sister Maria-Fiore and Antonia were not present, or, if not present, were not talked about.

  Now the friends all stood in the drawing room, enjoying a preliminary glass of wine before going through to the kitchen for the mushroom risotto and avocado salad Domenica had prepared for them.

  Domenica’s friend, Dilly Emslie, mentioned an advertisement she had seen for the Acceptable Circus, currently performing in a big top on the Meadows. “You wouldn’t credit it,” she said.

  “A most peculiar name for a circus,” said Judith McClure. “Roger saw it too, didn’t you, Roger?”

  Roger Collins nodded. “I can’t remember when I last went to the circus,” he said.

  “You’ve been so busy with your research, I suppose,” said Angus. “The correspondence of eighteenth-century Jacobite spies, I gather.”